Judy Garlow worked out of the limelight, and is largely unknown to the general public. But nobody in California did more over the past three decades to protect legal services for low-income people. In fact, it is no exaggeration to say that without Garlow’s efforts, poor people in much of California facing eviction, or whose public benefits have been wrongly eliminated, or who were victims of domestic violence, would have no access to legal representation.

The decimation of legal services is one of the crowning achievements of the Newt Gingrich era, and followed a decade long battle against a Reagan Administration desperate to deny poor people access to justice. Garlow fought to create a new funding source to keep legal aid alive, and millions of poor people have benefited from her advocacy.

Word of Judy Garlow’s death came as a shock to all of us who counted upon her to protect legal service for the poor. One cannot imagine what obstacles low-income Californians with legal problems would face had Garlow not worked at the State Bar of California when the Republican war on legal services began in 1981.

Most San Franciscans are likely unaware of the incredible array of free legal services for low-income people that existed in the city prior to President Ronald Reagan’s election. There were legal aid offices in the Mission, Chinatown, Western Addition, and Bayview-Hunters Point, with highly-skilled attorneys representing poor people in legal disputes.

Ronald Reagan and his crew had an axe to grind against legal services dating back to his battles with California Rural Legal Assistance (CRLA) while Governor in the 1970’s. CRLA’s effectiveness at challenging big growers and the legal abuses in rural communities angered Reagan’s political base, and destroying the organization became one of his lifelong crusades.

Although Reagan tried mightily to kill CRLA, he failed. His allies then decided to get back at the agency by trying to eliminate all legal services nationwide.

Democrats controlled the House during the Reagan years, and protected legal services from elimination, though not funding cuts. Unfortunately, San Francisco’s federally-funded legal services entity, then known as SFNLAF, suffered from poor leadership that decided to address the cuts by closing neighborhood offices rather than laying off administrators.

In response to the federal cuts, Judy Garlow led the State Bar of California to create an “Interest on Lawyers Trust Fund Accounts (IOLTA)” program to fund legal services. This program took interest generated in these attorney trust accounts and used it for providing legal services for the poor.

The high interest rates of the 1980’s meant that IOLTA brought millions of dollars to legal service programs. While lower interest rates since the 1990’s have reduced the overall amounts, and the 1990 census dramatically reduced the funds available for San Francisco (gentrification reduced the number of poor people, so we got less money), Garlow’s IIOLTA program was a lifesaver for legal programs serving the poor.

Garlow’s contribution increased in importance after the Gingrich-led Congress succeeded in decimating legal services funding after taking power in 1995. Legal aid to the poor has never recovered from that hit, particularly since Republicans inserted provisions preventing representation of undocumented immigrants and preventing legal aid from collecting attorneys fees.

These latter changes meant that many poor people most in need of legal assistance in places like Los Angeles could not be served, as they were undocumented. It also meant that legal aid groups could not make up for their lost federal funds through generating money through litigation.

So much for “justice for all.”

Meanwhile, Garlow was fending off attacks on the IOLTA program from conservatives claiming it was an unconstitutional “taking.” She played a key role in building public support for successfully convincing the United States Supreme Court to uphold IOLTA programs nationwide.

Ironically, I came to know Garlow well as a result of the State Bar’s preliminary recommendation to deny the Tenderloin Housing Clinic IOLTA funding for 1990.
The denial was caused by our having agreed to accept hundreds of thousands of dollars in foundation funds that were to be “passed through” to low-income and homeless victims of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.

We agreed to accept the money and, without taking any administrative funds, then pay it out to individuals. But Trust Fund guidelines required groups to spend less than 50% of their budgets on non-legal services, and the earthquake money put us over that amount.

I thought it was unfair for us to lose the $20,000 or so we got from IOLTA because we were trying to help quake victims, and brought our preliminary denial to the attention of the legal newspapers. After the story appeared on the front page, Garlow called and said not to worry – we would get our money.

Garlow again helped legal services after the Court of Appeal’s bizarre ruling in Frye v. Tenderloin Housing Clinic that would have prohibited nonprofit legal groups from having non-attorneys on their Boards of Directors. The decision also would have denied nonprofit status to legal groups serving non-indigent clients (such as environmental groups, women, racial minorities, people with disabilities etc).

Since the court based its ruling on a State Bar regulation, Garlow worked with the State Bar Board of Governors to clarify its position. The Bar communicated its view to the California Supreme Court, which unanimously reversed the Court of Appeal ruling.

The state’s legal services community lost a great ally with the death of Judy Garlow. May others be inspired by her example to take up the cause.

Send feedback to rshaw@beyondchron.org